Instead, I've been talking about it ever since. If this museum was meant for children, I must be a big kid.

I tapped out my first-ever Morse code message. ("Ellen in trouble"). I started a timer and stuck my hand in a tank of water set at the temperature of the ocean that April night in 1912. I was in pain after about 15 seconds.

I tried to walk on three different decks that had pitches of varying steepness, demonstrating what it was like to hang on as the ship was sinking. I needed both hands on the railing to pull myself up the steepest one.

Sitting in a recreated lifeboat, I pushed buttons and listened to the stories of the people who had been in them. I patted two real dogs - Molly and Carter - two King Charles Spaniels whose trainers at the museum talk about the dogs known to have been on board the ship.